While in Vegas, I did not attend any of the ninety-seven thousand productions of Cirque du Soleil currently playing in that town. That had to wait 'til my return to Los Angeles.
Woke up at 9:30. Caught the shuttle to the airport at 11:30. The plane took off at 1:20 and landed a bit ahead of schedule at 2:12. Carolyn met me at the airport and we went for a late lunch, then out to Santa Monica Pier where a Cirque show called Kooza is currently packin' 'em in. This one is different from the others because...well, I guess it isn't. You've got your haunting music, your colorful (but sometimes bizarre) costumes, your incomprehensible and ignorable plot line, your intermittent clowns and your people doing physically impossible feats.
There are three women who bend and balance with amazing poise and flexibility. There's an amazing juggler. There are four tightrope walkers who'll have you holding your breath. There's a lady who flies about via trapeze. There's a gentleman who balances on a precarious perch, a dozen chairs high and does one-handed handstands. There's a pickpocket. There's a unicyclist who balances a lady all over his body while unicycling. There are people who leap on a teeter-totter and send others hurtling through the air. Then there's this thing, which they call The Wheel of Death...
I dunno. Even if I were a trained athlete with the physical prowess of those two guys, I'm not sure I'd want to make my weekly paycheck by being in or on something called The Wheel of Death. Carolyn had a better name for it. She called it The Double Hamster.
In person, of course, it's even scarier than it is in a teensy YouTube embed. During an act like that (or the tightrope daredevils who close Act One), I find myself reminding myself: These folks do this eight to nine times a week on stage and goodness-knows-how-many-more in rehearsal. Just because it's the first time I've seen it doesn't mean it's the first time they've attempted it. Still, there are moments — including one "slip" I suspect was planned — when you find yourself wondering if you're about to see a human being maim themselves before your very eyes.
I was a bit disappointed by the last Cirque troupe that made its way through Southern California. That show, which is now in Tokyo, was called Corteo and it wasn't quite as jaw-dropping as some others I've seen. Kooza is a lot more fun. It goes from here to Irvine, San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Houston and Miami — in that order.
I got out of the habit of doing this and I'm now resuming. Lately, I've been unearthing and digitizing old photos from my files, mainly of folks in the comic book field. Here are three great friends who are no longer with us.
The gentleman at left is Don R. Christensen. There have been a couple of Don Christensens in the comic book and cartoon industries. This one, who sometimes signed his work "Don Arr," is best known for writing countless comic books for Dell and Gold Key — mostly funny animal stuff, though he occasionally did an issue of something like Magnus, Robot Fighter. He was a storyman in animation, including a stint in Bob Clampett's unit at Warner Brothers, and he wrote and sometimes drew a lot of great silly comics for publishers like Standard and ACG.
The fellow in the middle is Zeke Zekley, who was best known for his many years assisting 'n' ghosting for George McManus on the newspaper strip, Bringing Up Father, aka "Maggie and Jiggs." McManus wanted Zeke to take over the strip after he died but when that day arrived — in a scandalous tale Zeke only told me about nineteen times — someone else got the gig. Zeke went off to do other strips on his own, including a Dagwood-like one called Dud Dudley. Comic strip bylines were never more colorful than when you could read Dud Dudley by Zeke Zekley. Later, he ran a company that produced "commercial" comics for advertising and educational purposes, and he employed the other two men in this photo.
At right is Alfredo Alcala. That's right: This photo runs the gamut from A.A. to Z.Z. Alfredo was, of course, a star artist of the Filipino comic world who came to America and graced hundreds of our comics, mostly ghost titles or Conan the Barbarian. He just may have been the fastest comic artist who ever lived, especially if you factor in the sheer number of lines he put on a page. I thought he was a brilliant talent, quite apart from his sheer volume, though I don't think the U.S. comic industry ever knew quite what to make of him or where to put him.
This pic was taken — I think by me — in my front hall around (I'm guessing) 1980. The thing on the wall behind Don's head is a painting that C.C. Beck did for me of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Cap Junior standing at attention before Shazam. I still have the painting. I wish I still had these three people around.
The talented Shelly Goldstein (not to be confused with the many untalented Shelly Goldsteins out there) turned me on to this nugget of Broadway gold: Nine minutes of rehearsal footage from the original 1975 production of Chicago, starring Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, Jerry Orbach and Barney Martin, directed by Bob Fosse. Also in there is a stunning dancer named Charlene Ryan who is now wed to the guy who draws Groo the Wanderer. The video ain't great and the audio ain't grand but it's amazing that this even exists. Certain things were changed before the show opened and wowed them in New York.
One of these days, the currently-ubiquitous concert-style staging of this show will fade from favor and view, and we'll see a revival that promises to faithfully recreate the original Fosse production. Not that what they're doing now is bad in any way but I'd sure like to see it, at least once, the way Bob did it. Here's a little taste...
I just walked until my feet asked for political asylum, then hopped into a cab and came back here. Amazingly, David Siegel was not driving it.
Everything was packed, it being Saturday night...an awful lot of couples, an awful lot of alcohol consumption, even by Vegas standards. I was darn near the only one on The Strip without one of those yard-long drinks that look like some glass blower has been doing steroids. There was a major pedestrian sigalert where the pavement snakes through Harrah's Carnaval (why do they spell it that way?) Court.
Before I reached the populated areas, I was on a side street where I made eye contact with a woman who looked so much like a stereotypical hooker, I wondered if she was a police plant or something. She wasn't a bad-looking lady...or wouldn't be, I suspect, if she hadn't laid the make-up on with a trowel. I looked at her and then she looked at me and she surprised the hell out of me when she informed me that Congress had just passed the Health Care Reform bill, 220-215 with one Republican voting yes and 39 Democrats voting against.
No, I made that up. She didn't say anything. I just shook my head "no" and she shrugged like she expected it. I guess they generally expect that.
I walked through the Palazzo, the Wynn and the Encore, and I noted how the classier a hotel is, the more outta-place all those slot machines and video poker displays seem. I didn't lose any money gambling, possibly because I didn't play. Them days is behind me and I'm not entirely sure why.
It's suddenly feeling like time for bed. From Las Vegas, this is Mark Evanier saying, "Good night, Internet!"
November 7, 2009
